Exit Wounds Can Heal
by Rahar Moonfire
Summary: I am finally at peace. Forgive me my paramour. My beloved. Jack. I'm sorry. A rewrite of episode 13 of season 2, Exit Wounds but with a somewhat happy ending. SPOILERS INSIDE! This is my first deathfic. None of the main characters die, but still...


**A/N: **Well, in short, I was watching Torchwood season 2 episode 13 _Exit Wounds_ just now and I could not stand to watch those two characters die. So I literally wrote this oneshot right after I watched it. It's a bit rough and on the sad side, but it gives those two lovebirds a second chance. But then, everything has a price. How did xxxHolic's Yuuko Ichihara put it? "When a service is rendered, compensasion is necessary to complete the transaction. And the payment must be of equal value to the service. It can be neither too much, nor too little. there can be no deficiency nor excess; only perfect balance and equivalence."

**Warnings: **Tear jerker (at least for me anyway). No deaths (well, none of the main characters die anyway). Oh, and there is an OC, but he is NOT a mary sue or anything of the like. I OWN HIM! NO TOUCHY. If you want to borrow him just let me know first. I like this character too much to have him stolen.

And now without furthur ado...

**Exit Wounds Can Heal**

_She was dying slowly, painfully. The bullet in her stomach slowly, ever so slowly draining her of her life. Blood flowed from the wound. There was no hope. And worse of all, she knew it. All she could do was wait, let her life drain away, and listen as the one she had secretly loved for so long, died as well. _

_He sat in the chamber terrified, yet strangely calm. He was amazed at how calm he'd become. All it took to calm his rage was the woman he'd secretly adored telling him that his screams were breaking her heart. Now he just sat on the cool floor, waiting for his death. He knew it would be slow. He knew it would be painful._

_They both knew. And they both accepted. If only Jack were there._

**XxX**

He woke up with tears streaming down his face. His heart was breaking for those two he'd _seen_ die. He didn't know when it would happen, and he didn't completely understand the circumstances, but he knew it would happen. He also knew there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

He buried his face in the pillows and wept as silently as he could so as to not wake his lover. He almost thought he'd succeeded, until a gentle caress down his spin told him otherwise.

"Hey, what's wrong?" asked the person who until moments ago had lain asleep by his side.

The weeping youth shook his head murmuring, "It's nothing."

The caressing hand settled against the back of his neck and massaged the convulsing muscles. "If it was nothing, then you wouldn't be crying."

The youth choked on a short laugh. His lover knew him too well. He took a few moments to try regaining control of himself before pushing himself up and rolling to the side to face his worried lover. His pale blue eyes gazed absently at his lover's chest as the depressing emotions slowly but surely drifted away.

"Aren?" Taking care to be gentle, the other man reached out to push away stray strands of dark red hair brushing the youth's cheek as he did so. "Was it another Sighting?" the other asked.

The flame haired youth swallowed and lowered his eyes in response. The other man sighed wearily and drew his younger lover to him, holding him, reassuring him that all would be well. And the youth let himself be reassured, let himself be held, let himself be seduced, let himself be loved. But he could never forget the utter helplessness he'd felt when he saw those two innocents die.

He let his despair, his pain, his helplessness, his love, his pleasure, and his desire escape in one word cried out at the height of pleasure.

"Jack!"

**XxX**

It had been several weeks since that particular Sighting, but the emotions, the two people's faces continued to dog him. Desperate to remove them, Aren resorted to any and all possible distractions. He practiced his swordsmanship, he read novels back-to-back, cover-to-cover, ran around the small manor, worked in the garden. Jack was always there. His ever loving wall of strength.

He smiled and let his eyes drift closed as two arms slipped around his waist and held him protectively, lovingly. A sharp nip swiftly followed by a gentle kiss on his ear forced him to relax into the embrace. Leaning his head back against his lover's shoulder to give Jack better access to his throat, he let his thoughts wander.

Although their particular brand of love was looked down on, they held on to each other. Aren wasn't a lord by any means, he wasn't even _human_ by any means, but he had inherited a healthy sum from his parents who had settled on this planet before they died of illness native to this world. He had also taken ill, but for some reason even the doctors could not explain, he had survived. But he had never been the same. For ever since then, he had been blessed –or was it cursed- with the ability to See the future and heal minor wounds with his mind.

Great though it may sound, it was unpredictable. He could never tell if what he was seeing or feeling in his visions would happen years from now, decades, centuries, or even minutes, or, yes, even seconds. Or if it would ever happen at all. He could also never tell _where_ whatever he Saw would happen. And his healing abilities were almost just as chaotic and uncontrolled, often causing things to worsen rather than heal correctly. All he could ever do was be forced to suffer through vision after painfully blinding vision and try to keep the damage to his mind at a minimum until he'd nearly taken his own life in shear desperation.

But Jack had stopped him.

Jack. The beautiful man he now leaned against with mouse brown hair cut short, and baby blue eyes that held the kind of wisdom no one should ever know.

It had been a day just like today. The sun had been shining brightly in a clear blue sky. It was mocking him. The brilliant sunlight was mocking his pain. He had stepped to the edge of the roof and gazed out over his lands. He had dismissed the servants ordering them to return to their families for the Christmas holiday. The snow had sparkled with an unnaturally pure light.

And the fell. No dramatic last step. No screams of anger, torment, or fear. Just leaning forward, feeling the biting wind against his face, feeling the hot tears against his cheeks, and letting gravity do the rest.

Until something had grabbed his wrist thus stopping his fall and dislocating his shoulder. He _did_ scream then. Pain lanced through his arm as his gaze jerked up to the roof from he had just willingly fallen and saw him.

The man with the soft brown hair and old baby blue eyes holding his wrist and keeping him from death.

Then he felt anger. No, not anger, fury. "Let go! Let go of me!" he ordered the stranger.

But in reply, the other man had simply hauled him back up to safety, and his doom. He'd then been too distracted by the agony of having his shoulder forced back into its proper joint to notice what had happen then.

All he knew was that he had fought the other man. He had fought him and continued to fight him until punches became caresses, curses became moans, and hatred had become love.

That was several years ago and the two of them had been able to hide their relationship fairly well. But now things were about to change. Aren had had another vision. But in this one, those two dying lovers had had a different ending to their tale. A happier one. But it came at a price.

That price was the reason why Aren was now standing outside right now. He had a chance to change things, but he would have to give up something in order to do it. Fresh tears slipped down his cheeks as he turned in his lover's arms and planted a deep, needy kiss on Jack's lips.

Close, any minute now.

"I love you, Captain Jack Harkness. No matter what happens, please always remember that." He swallowed down a rising sob. "Forgive me."

Now.

I turned and bolted as fast as my feet could carry me. The shimmering glow filled my vision and a high pitched trill filled my ears, but failed to drown out my dear, beloved Jack's screams for me to come back. But that was the one thing I couldn't do.

I had already come too far. I couldn't even look back. I barely had time to blink before I reappeared in a while tiled alcove. I took precious moments to gather my bearings before I knelt down by the woman. I pulled her head to my chest and placed my hand over her wound. I used what l used every ounce of control I had to heal her body. The healing wound slowly pushed the lead bullet out of her body before sealing closed.

The woman was staring at me in dim shock. "Who…?"

I laid her gently back against the fallen chair she had previously been leaning against and told her, "Tell Jack that Aren Spiritus loves him and he is to _never_ forget that, no matter what. Tell him I'm sorry."

Then I'm gone again before she can form the words for her next question. The rift had changed direction and would link this place the other for only mere moments.

This time, I did not stop to gather my bearings. I took on step out of the rift, caught the startled, raven haired young man's wrist, and yanked him back through from whence I had come. But in doing so I had to fling myself further into the room.

I had no time to return to the rift before it closed taking away the young man and my last chance to escape. I would die here. My soft, black silk shirt, black ridding pants, and matching black boots were all I had left of the world and life I had once led.

I was an alien to this world. I was not from Earth. And yet… And yet I felt like I had finally come home. I felt at peace. No longer did I feel helpless.

I felt at peace.

I knelt and watched as the metal around me began to melt from whatever it was that would have killed that young man had I not saved him. I smiled.

But I cried as I smiled. For in doing this, I had saved my beloved's future comrades, but had given up my lover and my life to do so.

"Jack!"

**XxX**

"Toshiko? TOSHIKO? Gwen! I need help down here!" Jack Harkness hollered as he raced down the steps, his trademark coat trailing behind him, toward his fallen friend.

"Toshiko! Toshiko? Toshiko, are you alright?" he asked.

The Japanese woman rolled her head to him and smiled weakly, but it was the young man who held her in his arms who answered. "She'll be fine. She'll be fine." Owen kept repeating that single, short phrase like a mantra reassuring himself more than the captain.

"What happened?" Jack asked as Gwen set about cleaning the blood from Toshiko's soiled clothes. "Can you tell me?"

"He wanted me to…to…"

"To what, Toshiko? Easy, take it easy. Take your time. Everything's ok now," the young man with the old eyes said, his kind voice a soothing sedative to frayed nerves.

"He said he loves you," she swallowed painfully, "and that you were to never to forget that."

"Who, Tosh? Who? Who said this?"

"The man with the red hair," the healing woman breathed.

"His name, Tosh. What was his name?" the captain encouraged.

Soft brown eyes met old, baby blue. "Aren…Spiritus."

The world, his breathe, the sounds, everything screeched to a halt when a name he hadn't heard spoken in over a century was whispered by his friend of several years.

"He said he was sorry," Toshiko finished, glancing back to Owen. The medic pulled his precious Toshiko closer to him and rocked her. "He saved me, Owen. I don't know how, but he saved me. He just healed me, and left. Then you flew in. I thought," her words were cut off by a ragged sob, "I thought you were going to die."

Owen winced and held tighter to the distraught young woman. "So did I, Tosh. So did I."

Silence reigned for several seconds.

"The last thing I remember was a flash and then being flung toward the light by a red haired boy. The next thing I know, I'm here." Silence. "That must've been him. Aren, I mean."

Jack heard these words, but he couldn't accept them. It couldn't be, and yet it had. His red haired, alien paramour had saved his friends' lives, at the cost of his own. Now he understood.

Before Aren had vanished without a trace, he had asked Jack to forgive him. Now he apologized. Better to ask forgiveness then permission.

Never before had Captain Jack Harkness hated that phrase more than now. He refused to mourn his twice lost lover and brother until he was completely alone. Only then did he scream, rage, and weep until his heart was raw and his body forced him to sleep.

Dreams of the brother he'd left behind and the lover who'd left him behind plagued him. He wished fervently to die. But of all things available to him, death wasn't an option. It was and would never be an option. All he could do now was carry on. It was all he _could_ do.

For as someone with a spirit as fiery as his hair had once told him, "The end is where you start from."

* * *

**A/N:** Well, I hope you liked that and didn't cry too much not to review or anything.

**Rate and Review! ;)**


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